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Monday, November 25, 2013

The second film from Israeli
writer-director duo Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado is a brutal, yet undeniably
funny, horror-thriller and is looking to make an impact in cinemas this week (6th
December 2013).It has already caught
the attention of Quentin Tarantino who described it as “the best film of the
year”.

The film begins with a thuggish but
ultimately inept detective beating a tied-up suspect in a multiple child murder
case in the face repeatedly with a phone book.The suspect is a weedy religious studies teacher who is accused of
kidnapping girls and removing their heads.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, this
brutal (yet ludicrous) interrogation is recorded by a terrified child with a mobile
phone who puts the footage online for the country to see.Due to this embarrassment, the police chief
is forced to release the suspect and suspend the detective.The detective, now working outside of the
law, manages to serendipitously team up with a vengeful parent of one of the
previous victims who has bought a house (with a basement) in the middle of
nowhere so that he can take the law into his own hands…

Earlier in the year I wrote a review of When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun, a documentary highlighting the continuing injustices surrounding the relationship between Tibet and China. The film looks beautiful and has a great soundtrack featuring Thom Yorke, Philip Glass and Damien Rice.We have two copies of the DVD to give away (in association with AR-PR) before its official release date of the 9th December.For a chance to win simply follow Crispy Sharp on Twitter and tweet a message with #CrispySharpCompetition and #Dragon and we will announce a winner at 20:00 on December 8th.The DVD is available now at AmazonThe winner will be announced on Sunday the 8th of December at 20:00 and will be decided by random.Winners will be sent an email after the announcements

Saturday, November 23, 2013

To celebrate the release of the new romantic film from writer/director Chistopher Payne, Crispy Sharp (in collaboration with AR-PR) has 2 copies of the DVD to give away.

"Set in present day London, LOVE TOMORROW is the story of an ex-ballet dancer whose life is turned upside down after receiving devastating news about her fiancé, Dominic. Wandering the underground in a torment of pain and confusion, a chance encounter with a charismatic Cuban dancer, Oriel offers a temporary distraction. Oriel overlooks her engagement ring and suggests she spends some time with him.

Why she follows this insistent stranger is unclear, and why he tolerates her reserve, mood swings and outright hostility is also unclear. But as the night lengthens and turns into day, the frustrations, secrets and wounds of both their lives begin to emerge, and a fragile friendship promises to turn into something more profound."All you need to do is Like our page on Facebook and reply to one of the messages about this film with "Crispy Sharp Competition" - two winners will be announced on Wednesday 3rd of December.

Love Tomorrow – is available to pre-order on Amazon nowTHIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSEDThe winner will be announced on Wednesday the 3rd of December at 22:00 and will be decided by random. Information will be sent via Facebook inbox after the announcements

Friday, November 15, 2013

If
there is one political documentary filmmaker that has remained unambiguously ideologically
consistent over their career in the (quasi)mainstream then it is John
Pilger.He has fervently been
representing and documenting the plight of the oppressed and dispossessed for
nearly 4 decades, never sensationalising his subjects but instead listening to
them and contextualising their issues and turmoil.

His
latest documentary Utopia sees him
return to his home country of Australia in order to highlight the persistent
and shocking prejudice that is aimed at the Aboriginal communities.He last focussed on this subject in his film Welcome To Australia (available online
it its entirety here)
that highlighted the tragic inequality between the native people of the country
and their exclusion from the pomp and fanfare of the upcoming Sydney Olympic
games. This film returns to the issue,
this time stressing the lack of access to healthcare and employment for the
people, the appalling police brutality that they suffer and the psychological
damage that is done due to the historical revisionism of the white majority
population.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

When rumours started flying that Sandra
Bullock was starring in a sci-fi film that was gearing up to be one of the
event films of 2013, it seemed logical to assume that it was going to be a
big-budget adventure film with plenty of character clichés and genre
conventions.This is not an insult
against Bullock, it’s just that she has always suited mainstream popcorn fodder
and romantic comedies.However, the
rumours turn out to be true – this is the performance of a lifetime in a film
that could dominate critical and popular Top-Ten Sci-Fi lists for years to
come…

Friday, November 8, 2013

Short films, as opposed to
feature-length cinema, are almost always ‘high-concept’, i.e. possible to sum
up as an idea in a single sentence.For
example, what would it be like to wake up over and over again on the same day
(Groundhog Day)? Or what if machines had enslaved mankind without us knowing
(The Matrix)?Due to their length and
budgets, short films usually use a high-concept idea and explore it in a fun and
simple way.

Noah uses a high-concept style to tell a
story:How would a relationship
breakdown look from the point-of-view of a computer user?

The film is told entirely through
screenshots of Apple software, Facebook, Skype and Chat Roulette and explores
the relationships people have with these products, as they maintain the
relationships they have with real people…

Noah is idly browsing porn sites and
Wikipedia as he lazily video-calls his girlfriend Amy, who is concerned about
their relationship changing as they leave for college.When the call is interrupted he freaks out
and thinks that she is breaking up with him, so he logs into her Facebook
account in order to check her messages and interactions with other guys.It then shows the aftermath of his paranoia

If you can accept that the
cinematography of the film is simply watching someone browse Facebook, then the
narrative and the message of the film is pure zeitgeist, in a way that no other
film I have ever seen has captured a moment in time so beautifully (mid-2012;
chat roulette has already disappeared from the cultural conversation).The film manages to be distanced and voyeuristic
and yet intimate, funny and awkward, but not judgmental.Ultimately this captures how young people
interact online more than any teen blockbuster can get close to.

It is the perfect video to go viral
online and I hope it gets seen by as many people as possible whilst it still
feels fresh, although I also think that it will serve as a snapshot (snapchat?)
into online reality for future virtual historians.

Friday, November 1, 2013

“In absence of adequate healthcare, we
have learned to be our own clinicians, researchers, lobbyists, drug smugglers,
pharmacists… We have our own libraries, newspapers, drug stores and
laboratories…”

The ongoing argument about the
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in America seems to mainly focus on one crucial
premise:Should the wider population be
forced to accommodate the healthcare costs of a minority?Proponents of the law claim that by spreading
the cost of coverage around then the overall economic benefits from having a
healthy population will outweigh the costs.Critics of the law claim that it is overreaching (to the point of
tyrannical) and that individuals should look after themselves.This split is mainly drawn down political
lines, with Republicans on one side (against) and Democrats on the other
(for).The question of coverage is not
necessarily focused on specific aliments and conditions.

Imagine how divisive the argument gets
then when (so called) morality is included in the equation.In the AIDS epidemic of the late ‘80s and
early ‘90s, one group of people (the mostly gay minority) insisted that more
action was taken to prevent a specific disease from spreading; and the other
group of people, mostly religious conservatives, wanted to prevent the disease
by eradicating ‘sinful’ behaviour.The
argument is essentially the same though; the right-wingers want to combat a
disease by enforcing responsibility on the individual, whereas the left-wingers
want to encourage collective action to help a disadvantaged minority.